


lucky shirt

by OnyxSphynx



Series: newmann one-shots [16]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Academia, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Misunderstandings, Newt has a crush, accidental fake-dating au, eventually anyway, except not? bc everyone thinks they had a one-night stand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 01:26:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17888939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnyxSphynx/pseuds/OnyxSphynx
Summary: It all starts when Newt accidentally wears one of Hermann's shirts.





	lucky shirt

**Author's Note:**

> for the anon prompt: "Could you do "there’s a rumour going around that I made up the fact that we slept together and I’m ‘pathetic’ so you show up to kiss me in front of everyone (bonus if they didn’t actually sleep together)" for Newmann?"

The morning starts out alright.  _Starts_  being the keyword; it starts, like most of Newt’s days do, with too many cups of coffee and a danish from his favourite bakery. He balances the cups and the bag with the pastry on top of his pile of books, barely able to see where he’s going.

Which, of course, is when he runs into someone. He trips on his shoe-laces, stumbles, hits a person—the  _oof!_ of surprise is definitely human—and goes careening to the ground, dumping the drink on himself.

That someone, as it turns out, is Hermann  _fucking_ Gottlieb, because of course it is. “Oh, God, I am so sorry—” Newt stammers, scrambling to his feet, “I am so, so sorry, I didn’t even—” Hermann waves it off, helps him up, but still, Newt feels horrible. “Here, lemme—” he checks the bag. “You like peach danishes, right? Here, take it, I insist. And again, I am so, so sorry, alright man? Like, super fucking sorry,” he babbles, shoving the bag at a confused Hermann.

“Er, yes, I do, thank you, Newton”, he says, taking the bag carefully, and pats Newt’s shoulder. “I, ah, have to get to class but—thank you.”

He leaves Newt standing, slack-jawed and practically a molten puddle, on the lawn, and hares off towards the physics building. Running slightly on auto-pilot—Hermann  _touched him_ , he can’t believe it actually happened, because they may be sort-of-kind-of friends but surely not close enough that he’s managed to gain Hermann’s rare physical contact, right?—he makes his way to his office and sets his stuff down and digs around for a spare shirt.

The one he pulls out…does not look like it belongs to him. It’s too—well, it’s too  _nice_. It’s a black button-up, and it looks suspiciously like one of Hermann’s, but that…that can’t be right. He shrugs, decides that it doesn’t matter, and pulls it on.

Except, three classes later, he catches a gaggle of students outside his office, crowded around a phone and giggling, and hears his name, and Hermann’s, and thinks,  _oh hell, what now?_  

Casually—or, as casually as he can manage, which is not very—he makes his way over to them, and says, “So, what’s this I hear about Doctor Gottlieb and I?”

The student with the phone tries to hide it, a guilty look on her face, but the boy by her side pipes up, “ _Doctor_ Gottlieb? Wow, you slept with him and you can’t even call him by his name? That’s  _pathetic_.”

“Chuck!” the girl hisses, “you—”

“ _What?_ ” Newt says loudly, flushing furiously. “I—what—you—”

The kid, Chuck, sneers. “You’re pathetic, man,” he spits, before the girl by his side drags him off, apologising the entire time, but Newt’s rooted to the spot, mortification dousing him like a bucket of ice-water.

It only gets worse from there; the next day, more incidents like the one with Chuck occur, leaving Newt more and more mortified and embarrassed. He can only imagine what it’s like for Hermann—shit,  _Hermann_. What’s he going to do to him? Newt imagines various scenarios, each worse than the last mall of which include Hermann, red-faced and spitting with rage, yelling at him to fuck off and never, ever talk to him again.

Two days later and he hasn’t seen hide nor hair of the physicist, and his anxiety’s growing. They usually run into each other at least once a day, and Newt hasn’t seen him since the start of the week. The rumours, on the other hand, are only growing more present. 

They range in detail, but most of them fall into one of two categories: one, Newt and Hermann slept together as a one-night-stand and Newt is pining over him, but Hermann isn’t interested, and two, Newt, pining pathetically, made up a rumour that they slept together. Both are wrong, and awful, and horrifyingly embarrassing.

And to make matters worse, they are true—partially. Because Newt has a teeny tiny, itty bitty crush on a certain foul-tempered German mathematician. Fate, apparently, hates him.

A knock on his office door rouses him from his thoughts, and he groans. “If you’re here to pester me about Doctor Gottlieb, go away,” he says, miserably. There’s a moment of silence before the person knocks again, and Newt drags himself to his feet to answer it. He yanks the door open and starts, “No, I did not sleep with—”

It’s Hermann at the door. Hermann, who grabs him by his tie and drags him in for a scorching kiss, Newt’s words dying against his lips as he flails for purchase.

Newt lets out a whine and melts as Hermann deepens the kiss, the shocked gasps and exclaimations of surprise from the students in the hall barely registering. With a hand at his waist, Hermann practically shoves him into the office, kicking the door shut behind him.

When Hermann finally draws back, Newt croaks, “Not to imply that I’m not enjoying this, but what’re you doing here? And—and why did you just make out with me in front of students?”

Hermann lets out a light cough, a blush on his cheeks. “I may have—er, heard about the…rumours. And felt that it was unfair to you that the students assumed that you were simply my…” he pauses. “Bit on the side.”

“So…you decided the best way to disprove the assumption was by making out with me in my doorway?” Newt questions, and Hermann ducks his head sheepishly.

“I simply thought that…well, I  _hoped_ that I hadn’t been misreading the signals you’d been sending,” he says, fiddling with the head of his cane. “I…I thought that I could solve two problems in one.”

Newt gapes at him. “Are you—are you asking me  _out_?” he squeaks, and Hermann nods. 

“Well, yes, if that’s—if that’s what you want,” he stammers, cheeks reddening. 

“ _Fuck_ yeah!” Newt exclaims, grinning, “yeah, that’d be—that’d be great. Also, maybe you could—” he makes a complicated gesture. Hermann stares at him for a moment.

“Your…face? Nose? No, your lips,” he mutters. “Your lips and mine—oh! Oh, you want me to  _kiss_ you!” He beams at Newt, the expression lighting up his entire face, and says, “Yes, of course—come here.”

Newt obliges, leaning forward and tilting his head so they’re at a less awkward angle, and Hermann kisses him sweetly. “I can’t believe you had my shirt,” he comments when he pulls back, running a hand over the black button-up that Newt’s wearing again. “I’ve been looking for it for ages—I even asked my students to keep a look out for it.”

Newt bursts into laughter. “Oh my god, all this is because of—because of a  _shirt_?” he questions. “I don’t even—I don’t even know how I got it!”

Hermann’s lips twitch with a smile, and he reaches for Newt’s hand twining them together. “And what a lucky shirt indeed,” he says. “What a very lucky shirt.”


End file.
